Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hulitu 98 days ago
> There's pretty much nothing in the natural world that has the contrast ratio a modern screen can produce.

The natural world has much better contrast than the majority of screens. Not everyone has or affords a Mac Retina display. The main issue is, that, since some 10 years, UX experts appeared who pushed away configurability in favor of gray on gray ( remember when you were able to select the background and foreground color ?). The majority of screens have crappy contrasts (100:1).

1 comments

Paper and ink have at best, a ~15:1 contrast ratio (bleached white paper and black ink).

> The majority of screens have crappy contrasts (100:1).

No idea where you're pulling this from. A MacBook Air display from 2010, a very average non-retina screen, has about 300:1. A modern MBA is over 1000:1 real-world contrast performance. A very average quality budget TN display from 2010s is 500:1.

I could not find a phone or desktop display at my local retailer with stated a contrast ratio lower than 1200:1 (stated vs real world will of course be different, but not hugely).

I agree apps/websites should take into account user preferences (with things like 'prefers-contrast' in CSS). I saw a great example recently where a website had a light/dark/hi-contrast toggle... but on first visit it defaulted to the one based on current system light/dark mode and 'prefers-contrast' indicators.

We can have both text that's easier for most people eyes and higher contrast and/or larger text for those who need it.